Georgian architecture

With Georgian architecture refers to a style of architecture that was widely used in English-speaking countries between approximately 1720 and 1840. The name comes from the four British monarchs named George from the House of Hanover, who ruled at that time in the UK.

More than any other period of English architectural history refers to the Georgian architecture in the classical Greek and Roman. This reference back was a typical characteristic of the Renaissance. The style is related to the classicism or neoclassicism in mainland Europe.

Features

Typical elements of Georgian architecture are ( in different regional variations ):

  • Floor plan: symmetrical arrangement
  • Facade: clear, symmetrical arrangement
  • Contrast of flat brick surfaces ( England ) or colored plaster surfaces ( America) and white plaster ornaments
  • Use of decorative ornaments like arches, pilasters
  • Representative input situation with a portal that is lined with pilasters, pediments and staircase. The entrance doors have semi-circular skylights and are often designed in color.
  • Base ( " water table" ) that runs around the building.

Development and dissemination

The style came to the English Baroque, whose main representatives were the architect Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. One of the first architects who promoted the new style was Colen Campbell with its steel engravings in Vitruvius Britannicus, Lord Burlington, ( full name Richard Boyle ), fourth Earl of Cork and his pupil William Kent, Thomas Archer and the Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni who worked in England.

After 1840, the style was complemented by a wide repertoire of classical pseudo- elements and thus unclear. Other neo- styles such as the Gothic Revival had become popular alternatives.

In the United States the Georgian style was added to the colonial architecture, is recognized as a form of Palladianism; a special form of Greek Revival he is for the time before the Civil War also called Antebellum architecture. Influential for the dissemination of the style was built in 1759 by John Vassall House in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Vassall was an officer in the British militia and wealthy merchants, his house is considered one of the most - copied the colonial architecture. The house later became the headquarters of George Washington during the Siege of Boston 1775/76 and home of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It is now a National Historic Site for the Siege of Boston, as well as the life and work of Longfellow.

Examples

  • Georgian Dublin
  • Colonial architecture in North America # Georgian Colonial
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